Foreign Power: Restricting Xinjiang Cotton Has A Profound Impact On American Retail

The U.S. workers' rights Federation said the U.S. government's recent ban on imports of cotton and cotton products from Xinjiang will have a profound impact on the U.S. clothing retail industry. As pointed out in the quartz report, the directive could affect the supply chain of almost all major apparel retailers from Amazon to target to Zara.

The Directive requires U.S. Customs and border protection to detain imports of Xinjiang corps cotton. Laura T. Murphy, a professor at Sheffield Haram University, and Ryan toom, a senior researcher at Nottingham University, said it was the most extensive customs ban to date on U.S. imports. Given that China is one of the world's largest cotton producers, the directive is likely to affect US $500 million a year of cotton and its products containing Xinjiang production and Construction Corps.

Steve Lamar, President and chief executive of the American Apparel and Footwear Association, said American companies were confused about the implementation of the directive. The directive applies not only to cotton products produced by XPCC, but also to cotton products produced by its subordinate and affiliated companies. However, the directive does not specify the definition of subordinate or affiliated entities, and the US government has not clarified these issues, which has caused a lot of confusion to industry leaders.

In addition, Nate Herman, senior vice president of AAFA, said the implementation of the directive was not clear enough. The customs and Border Protection Agency (CPB) did not disclose how it would implement the action and whether the directive only applies to products from China or other countries. The CBP did not further clarify the specific meaning of the statement in the ban, nor did it state how it intended to identify cotton products produced by XPCC or any of its subsidiaries.

Every level of the global supply chain is shrouded in ambiguity. For example, a U.S. brand that orders 100 shirts from a Bangladesh factory may not know its raw material supplier. To trace the origin of its cotton, it needs to trace all levels of its production process. Garment manufacturers usually grow long staple cotton in Xinjiang, India, the United States, Brazil and other places, and the raw cotton is processed by factories in China. Over the past few years, the company has been tracking their supply chain partners, and AAFA member companies are also mapping their supply chain in Xinjiang to avoid any direct contact with the organization. With China accounting for 20% of the world's cotton production, fashion companies may find it difficult to avoid Chinese cotton.